Autumn

Card of Frédéric to his grandparents, from Mostaganem around September 1959, after his return from France
Dear Granpère, dear Granis. I've had a good trip. Christophe is a worm. Big kissesFrédéric

Letter from Claude to Fanny
Mostaganemlate October 1959
...Yves is for a few days in Tlemcen where there is a meeting of engineers. The children are fine, Christophe always in my legs. He makes me mad by coughing always since the beginning of October and that fatigues him. He still weighs 9kg 600 and he no longer looks like a big, sleek boy. As soon as he gets cured, it starts again.
Frédéric is concerned about metaphysical questions. He finally has the key to the problem of the birth of babies. Fortunately I was laughing less than with you this summer to answer him. So far it was understood that the Good Lord was giving babies. But then "Dad went to the good Lord to look for the little brother?" "No God gave Mom a small seed and the little baby pushed her near her heart in her belly." But then, "by a small hole that mothers purposely" . A few days after "How does the little seed make her fat? "As for the mother, the little seed is also having lunch, so she grows and grows." Here is Frédéric. But he is much less serene in front of death. On a day when he sang Malbrough goes to war, he stops at Monsieur Malbrough and starts crying inconsolably. I had to imagine death as a small journey with God and represent him even more joyfully than the paradise of Mohammed, he was very affected, and what is terrible is that every time he sings Malbrough, he begins to cry again at the same time.
So, here's the shit out of it.
What are you doing? I'm gonna recommend veal cutlets in my own way.(see detailed recipe)…

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Letter from Claude to his parents
Mostaganem, 24 December 1959 
...So thanks again, Frédéric was very excited and Christophe naturally put his little hands where it was not necessary, taking the packages from the neighbors and not understanding anything. Last year there was still as a gift of the next day this baby Christophe who always makes our joy. (the birth of the next, Martin, was expected by early May). We wish you a good year, a good health, that time will pass quickly! I have been married for six years and you have had privileged lives. Let it continue, we must ask God.
He made Christmas day an extraordinary time, so we spent the afternoon at the beach. Frédéric is not happy to be on vacation, he would prefer, he told me, going to school. He starts reading and writing well, and I think that by the end of the year it will be acquired.
We got two entrepreneurs from Champagne, it's scary, they think we're drunk. I think we'll open them when we hang the rack in Algiers... (my new job at EGA in Algiers is now safe, but the date is still uncertain, the EGA is in a hurry, but the Public Works of Algeria is much less, and do not want me to leave so quickly, I thought it would be for the 1st time.^ir January, but it will be possible to wait.

Letter from Claude to his parents
Mostaganem, 6 January 1960
... Still nothing new for our departure. Yet Yves brought in the mover who weighed our furniture – it's him who put everything in check, so we won't have much harm. It will be in 3 days, the 1st^ir the second frame, the third^nd, travel to Algiers and unpacking.
We always enjoy springtime. It's nice, I enjoyed it very much during the school holidays and now, because I take Christophe every day to the public garden an hour before going to get Frédéric at school. He has been back in good shape at school. Since a homeopathic treatment that treats his little health problems – coughing colic buds since October – as being "allergies" due to liver failure, he is in full prosperity and it makes me happy to see. L-oto-rhino, however, advised a cure in La Bourboule – because it has a very ugly throat – and the removal of vegetation (we didn't do anything about it) Remembering the little result of this attempt with us, I'm thinking of sending him to the mountain for a month, for example in June, in a children's house. Finally, I'll see how the circumstances will come up.
 ..the new year...for us, we celebrated at the Mullers who had a monster meeting of almost 50 people invited for all day...

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Letter from Claude to his parents
Mostaganem, Friday, January 29th? 1960 
..we provisionally handed over our move (probably because of the disturbances caused in Algiers by the barricades case on Sunday 24 January 60, with the machine-gun killing of 14 gendarmes - more than 100 gendarmes injured - by the ultras of French Algeria). Tuesday (on 26 January) the packers were putting in a box and that evening we decided to back off, so we got our beds and unpacked the fridge, and we're camping. Besides that I didn't even have a pack of noodles because I had exhausted my reserves to leave. Fortunately the Mullers brought us food baskets and now the stores have reopened (they had closed following the order of ultras – cad the activists Algeria French)
The ultrasgroups here in Vigilance Committees, do not have to be proud of them. After having excited the population to strike – while the Prefect ordered life to continue as usual – the mayor (chairman of the Vigilance Committee) ordered closure everywhere, and shouting "French Algeria" to you to cast off their ears, they let themselves be overtaken by a Muslim counter-demonstration (Wednesday, 27 January) which degenerated into a FLN demonstration. Bands of young Muslim boys aged 10 to 15 began navigating the Vigilance Committee on the square by shouting "Vive de Gaulle, Massu au posteau". They were shot and then unleashed by throwing stones and pavements against their opponents, on the windows and on the town hall. The mayor and a deputy were trying to get the city hall balcony with a loud talker to calm down all this mess, but he had to close his shutters quickly while the activists gradually fled.
The young boys joined by fatmas and bands of men carrying the FLN flag remained masters of the city, throwing stones and screaming "L-Algeria to us" evacuating our place but spreading in the peripheral areas. The European population responded to this provocation with gunshots and naturally there were dead and wounded among the demonstrators. (Thursday, 28 January) Tigditt (Arabic quarter) was crazy. The city was deprived of any orderly service. But since today (Friday, 29 January) troops and CAS (Algerian security women?) All the troubles are over.
Fortunately, I was well inspired to go get Frédéric in class at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday. (January 27th?) – for I wanted to say goodbye to the Trinitarians – an hour after the fight broke out. How emotional, we await the reaction of Algiers, after the speeches of Del Travailleur and De Gaulle tonight. Here the colonists are reasonable – the Mullers and all those I know – and all this violence scares them.
The children are fine, Christophe is increasingly deluded, he runs everywhere and gets angry when he has constraints! He laughs a lot with his brother. Frédéric has a beautiful notebook that the Trinitarians have handed over. I keep it in my archives, because I am in admiration....